Thuram: Lloris won't accept strike

Lilian Thuram has hinted at criticism of Patrice Evra to beIN SPORTS for colluding in the France national team's infamous World Cup strike of 2010, and warned the current squad they must be on their best behaviour in Brazil.

In 2010, the squad of then-national team coach, Raymond Domenech, went on strike in South Africa in protest at Nicolas Anelka's exclusion.

Evra, 33, was Les Bleus' captain at the last World Cup, and Thuram feels the Manchester United left-back should have prevented the squad's actions.

The former Parma, Juventus and Barcelona defender suggested current captain Hugo Lloris and his understudy, Mamadou Sakho, would show a firmer hand should similar dissent to Didier Deschamps' regime occur in Brazil.

Thuram, a 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 winner, said: "From the moment you're capable of doing that, there's a problem. What does the French national team represent then?

"It's funny, because certain players say they are deprived of liberty. But the France team is above everything. In Brazil, I doubt Lloris and Sakho will accept a strike. But it's wrong to forget it.

"It is also wrong to forget the win in '98. You have to take what is good and bad and use that as experience. You have to say that football represents much more than football. When you're a footballer, you represent a country, and you have to give a good example."